Severus and the Weasley Twins
by Healer Pomfrey
Summary: Severus would never admit to being sick if not under extraordinary circumstances. What if the twins decided to help him? Will he return the favour? Set in the twins' fifth Hogwarts year. AU, partly OOC, sick!Severus, later sick!twins


**Severus and the Weasley Twins**

"Don't run so fast, George," Fred scolded his brother. "You know as well as I that we need to stay under the invisibility cloak."

"We're already there anyway," George gave back as they entered The Three Broomsticks and began to pull Harry's cloak off, before Fred all of a sudden began to pull his brother back outside.

"Did you see what I saw, Feorge? That was Snape sitting at the counter. We can't go in and buy ten bottles of butterbeer for our New Year's party tomorrow as long as the greasy git is in there."

"Oops," his brother replied, groaning. "Well, let's go in under the cloak and wait until he leaves then."

George waved his wand to throw a silencing spell around them, and the two fifth years returned to the pub, where they proceeded to stand behind Snape's seat, thinking they might hear interesting things coming from Hogwarts' strictest teacher. However, they soon noticed that the professor was not his usual menacing self. He sat at the counter, nursing a huge mug of tea, with his head popped up on his arms. His face was even paler than normal, while his cheeks were deeply flushed as if the professor was embarrassed of something.

"Did he just return from a date?" George whispered to his brother, smirking.

"No, I think he looks ill," Fred replied, giving the Potions Master a piercing look as the man tiredly rubbed his forehead.

"Professor Snape, are you sure that you don't want me to call Madam Pomfrey or the Headmaster? You're in no condition to walk back all the way to the castle," Madam Rosmerta suddenly addressed the teacher, looking in concern at his sickly figure.

"I'm fine," Snape gave back harshly, unable to prevent himself from letting out a few chesty coughs. "A mere cold won't prevent me from returning to the castle on my own. Let me just drink my tea in peace. I am merely resting, because I have to brew overnight," he croaked, inefficiently trying to stifle a sneeze as he turned his dull eyes towards his cup of tea.

During the next thirty minutes, the twins watched their professor slowly sip his tea, wincing each time he swallowed, before he inefficiently tried to stand up, sitting back immediately as dizziness overcame him.

"George, forget the butterbeer; we have to help him home," Fred whispered.

Imagining them in detention and banned from all Hogsmeade visits for the rest of their lives, George grudgingly agreed.

The twins quickly pulled the invisibility cloak off and cancelled the silencing charm, before they stepped on each side of the professor. "Hello Professor, we heard that you need a ride home," Fred addressed the man.

"What are you doing here?" the professor tried to bellow, inwardly sighing in resignation as it came out as a mere croak. "Detention for a week," he stated in a dangerously calm voice barely above a whisper.

"Very well, Professor, will you take us back to Hogwarts then, please?" George asked timidly, steadying the man as he tried to stand up.

Leaning heavily onto George's left and Fred's right arm, the professor made his way out of the pub. The twins led the teacher to the backside of the building, where Fred waved his wand and conjured a stretcher, causing his twin brother to look in awe. "Where did you learn to do that?" he asked in surprise.

"I watched Madam Pomfrey the other day," Fred gave back. "Lie down, Professor."

Snape let out a snort of disbelief, which turned into a coughing fit. "I am well able to walk back to the castle, and I won't let you have so much fun," he whispered, causing the twins to groan.

"Professor, we have Harry's invisibility cloak, and we promise that nobody will see you or hear about the matter," George reassured the man, before he pulled his arm back, causing the teacher, who had still been leaning heavily onto the twins' arms, to stumble.

Knowing that he wouldn't make it back to the castle, Snape grudgingly sat down on the stretcher, and Fred pulled the cloak out of his robe pocket. "You'll probably have to lie down, sir; otherwise it won't cover the stretcher completely."

With the stretcher invisibly floating between them, the twins walked back to Hogwarts and through the empty corridors to the Potions Master's office. "We're in front of your office sir," they informed him as they ended the levitation spell and proceeded to help the teacher get up.

Leaning heavily onto the twins' arms, Severus stumbled into his office, letting himself sink onto the chair behind his desk. He waved his wand at his potions shelf, sighing in relief after downing two potions. "Thank you, Messrs. Weasley," he said, sounding slightly better. "Provided that you won't tell anyone of our encounter today, I won't do either," he suggested, causing the twins to grin.

"Agreed, Professor," they replied simultaneously. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Fred queried, "Professor is it true that you have to spend the night brewing?"

"Yes, I have to brew the potion for the Grindylow pox for Hagrid, which will take the whole night."

"Can we help?" George suggested, causing the Potions Master to throw him an unbelieving look.

"Ah come on, Professor, you know that we aren't so bad at Potions," Fred spoke up, causing the teacher to remain thoughtful for a moment.

That was true. As much as he despised the twins for doing mischief all the time, they were really good at Potions. "No thank you, I'm well able to brew on my own," he refused the twins' offer.

"Good luck, sir, and if you feel you still need us, just tell anyone we had to serve detention, and we'll come and help, even if it's during the night," the twins offered, throwing the invisibility cloak over them, before they hurried away.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

"It's time for dinner, Gred," George told his brother, turning to the Great Hall, where Ron, Harry, and Hermione were already sitting together with the teachers.

"Everything all right?" Ron asked immediately, causing the twins to unobtrusively shake their heads.

"We'll tell you later," Fred informed his younger brother as he took the empty seat next to him.

"Maybe we should commence," McGonagall spoke up, throwing Dumbledore an expecting glance.

"Did any of you see Severus? He had to go to Hogsmeade this afternoon to buy some urgent potions ingredients, but I didn't hear that he was back yet," the Headmaster queried, glancing around.

"Ah, we saw him come back a few minutes ago," George replied hastily. "He told us he was busy brewing the potion for the Grindylow pox."

"Nevertheless he has to attend the meals," McGonagall sighed in annoyance. "I'll go and check on him right after dinner," she promised, and Dumbledore clapped into his hands making dinner appear on the table.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

Thirty minutes later, McGonagall entered Severus' private chambers, finding him sitting in front of a cauldron in his personal lab. Without even a glance in his pale face with the dark rings under his eyes she already knew that he was ill. No half way healthy Severus Snape would be sitting in front of a cauldron instead of towering over it.

"Severus, I'm sure Hagrid won't die if he has to wait a few hours longer," she addressed the man in a soft voice, causing him to jump startled.

"How dare you sneak up on me like that?" he tried and failed to sneer as it came out as a croak.

"I wasn't sneaking up on you; I've been standing here watching your faint attempts to deny to yourself that you're ill and need to go to bed," McGonagall gave back briskly. "I would offer to assist, but knowing that I'm an as you call it dunderhead at Potions, I won't offer to help, but shall I perhaps ask Poppy or anyone else?"

"I'm fine and well able to..." After a few harsh coughs, he continued, "... to brew a simple potion like that on my own, Minerva."

"I can see that you're completely fine," his colleague gave back, before she in a fast movement laid her hand on his forehead. "You're burning up," she stated, sighing. "Severus, you will either go to bed immediately and brew the potion after you got at least a good night's sleep, or you will ask someone to assist, or," she continued in a threatening voice, "I'm going to send Poppy to you because you're ill."

"Very well then, send me the Weasley twins. They have to serve detention anyway," Severus gave back hoarsely, knowing that the two boys were adept enough to even brew the potion on their own, although he would never willingly admit in front of the Scottish lioness that he'd appreciate their help.

"You want them to serve detention overnight?" McGonagall asked in disbelief. However, a glance in her colleague's flushed face and his glassy eyes made her agree and hurry back to Gryffindor to fetch the twins.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

By the time the twins arrived, Severus was feeling so dizzy that it only took twenty minutes, before he managed to nearly make the potion explode. Fortunately, George saw right in time that the professor was on his way to stir the wrong way and quickly led his hand the other way round. "Professor, you feel hot to the touch and you're not able to brew in your condition. Let me help you to bed. This potion is easy, and we'll well be able to brew it for you. If you don't let us take over, we'll complain to Professor McGonagall that you endanger us by nearly letting your potion explode right next to us."

Snape threw the boy the most dreadful glare he could manage as he grudgingly obeyed. While George helped the man into his bed, steadied him so he could take another potion, and gently laid a conjured cool cloth on the teacher's burning forehead, Fred continued with the brewing process, and when Severus hurried into his private lab in the morning, glad that his cold seemed to be gone, the flawlessly brewed potion was waiting for him.

After breakfast, he called the twins over, glaring as he sneered, "Weasley and Weasley follow me."

The twins exchanged a surprised glance, shrugged, and followed the professor, who led them into the small chamber beside the Great Hall.

"If I remember correctly," the man began in his usual voice laced with the traditional sneer, "you were in Hogsmeade yesterday to buy butterbeer. Is that correct?"

'_We didn't tell him_,' the twins mused astonished, before they hesitantly nodded.

"Very well; I assume that was intended for your New Year's party tonight in Gryffindor," the professor continued, causing them to nod uncertainly. '_What does he want? We already served detention, didn't we?_' Fred thought, throwing his twin a questioning glance.

"Very well then; you're dismissed," the Slytherin Head of House ended the conversation, striding out of the room with his robes dramatically billowing behind him.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

After dinner the same evening, the twins and the trio returned to the common room, noticing in surprise that ten bottles of butterbeer were waiting on the table, labelled, '_To the Twins with Thanks_.'

"I thought you didn't manage to buy butterbeer?" Ron queried astonished.

"No Ronald, they didn't," Hermione replied in a lecturing voice, showing him the attached note. "Someone gave them to them. The question is '_Who did_'?"

"Professor Snape," the twins replied simultaneously, causing Ron and Harry to snort in disbelief, while Hermione proceeded to feel Fred's forehead.

"You're delirious," she stated worriedly. "Let me take you to Madam Pomfrey."

The twins threw her a menacing glare that would have made Severus proud. '_Even if we already caught the cold from Professor Snape, we're definitely not delirious_,' they thought, feeling completely annoyed to have others fuss about them.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

"Do you think we could sneak out to Hogsmeade to watch the fireworks?" Ron spoke up, expecting the twins to be all in for it.

"No, I don't think..."

"... it would be too wise," they replied dully, causing Harry and Hermione to throw them concerned looks.

"Are you two all right?" Hermione finally enquired. She stepped over to the sofa the twins shared and once more felt Fred's forehead, followed by George's. "That's it. Like I said you're both burning up," she said and went to fetch two Muggle thermometers from the bathroom.

"What's that?" the twins croaked simultaneously.

"That's a thermometer," Hermione replied, impatiently waiting for Fred to open his mouth.

"What for?" the twins queried, causing Hermione to sigh in exasperation.

"To take a temperature, and now open your mouths," she lectured the twins.

Finally, the two boys complied, nearly gagging as they felt the icy cold thing in their mouths.

"That's what I thought," Hermione mumbled, looking at the reading.

"I'm glad we could help you," Fred murmured lazily.

"Do we have a fever?" George queried, yawning.

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes, and it's quite high, so I'm going to call Madam Pomfrey.

"Don't even think about it," Fred threatened and pulled his wand, causing Hermione to throw Harry and Ron a helpless look.

"Oh no, I know what you did," Ron suddenly spoke up. "This is one of your joke candies you took, isn't it?"

"No but..."

"Ah..."

"Our Ron is simply the best," Fred sighed.

"Exactly. No, we didn't take a joke candy, but that doesn't mean that we can't take the antidote," George agreed, slowly getting up from the sofa. He dragged himself up to their dormitory and came back with two packages of their fever fudge and its antidote.

"Fred, George, are you sure that it's safe to only take the second half of it?" Hermione asked worriedly.

"Yes, of course. Why should we take the first one to get a fever if we already have one," the twins gave back, popping one half of their candies into their mouths.

"Are you feeling better now?" Harry enquired sceptically, giving the twins a sharp look. Their cheeks were deeply flushed, and their normally sparkling eyes looked dull and glassy.

"I feel much better," Fred replied, and his brother agreed.

"Very well then, let's have some butterbeer and enjoy the last two hours of the year," Ron spoke up, glad to be able to change the topic.

"Two hours? Ronald, it's already eleven o'clock," Hermione informed him. "We can just drink a bit, before we have to go and put some warm clothes on. In half an hour, we better go outside so we won't miss the fireworks."

The fireworks were fantastic, and the five friends spent an hour sitting on the seats around the Quidditch pitch with their second bottle of butterbeer in their hands, watching the fireworks that were shot up at Hogsmeade, before they tiredly walked back to their common room. Back in the common room, the twins returned to their sofa and lay down, huddled against each other.

"Fred and George," Hermione scolded them lightly. "Get up, take your warm robes off, and go to bed."

"Go'way," the twins replied simultaneously, sounding very hoarse.

"Hermione, just let them sleep for the moment. If they only feel half as dizzy as I after all this butterbeer, they won't want to get up anymore tonight," Harry threw in, curling up on his seat, equally dressed in his winter clothes.

"Harry!" Hermione sighed in exasperation, seeing that Ron was already fast asleep in another seat. "Oh well, Happy New Year to you too," she huffed as she climbed up the stairs to her dormitory.

"Night Mione, Happy New Year," Harry mumbled tiredly, before he drifted off to sleep as well.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

By the time Hermione came down the stairs into the common room, the four boys were still asleep. However, Ron stirred when she mumbled something about "lazybones's."

"Good morning to you too, Mione," he said, yawning. "What time is it?"

"Happy New Year, Ronald, and it's ten o'clock. Oh Ron, look at the twins. They don't look good." She walked over to the twins' sofa and worriedly felt their foreheads, causing the boys to jerk awake.

"What do you think you're doing?" Fred tried to shout, but it came out as a croak.

"Are we still sick?" George asked hoarsely, throwing Hermione an angry glare as she stuck the thermometers into their mouths.

"39.4 (102.9) and 39.2 (102.5); yes you are still sick," Hermione informed them.

"Shall I go and fetch two more antidote sweets?" Ron offered, causing Hermione to throw him an annoyed look.

"Ronald, they are really ill. This is not a game," she lectured the boy, who ran up to his brothers' dormitory as the twins nodded gratefully.

A sound from behind her made Hermione turn around, seeing that Harry had just abandoned his seat to curl up on the floor in front of the fireplace.

"Oh Harry, are you ill as well?" Hermione asked her friend, who looked worse for the wear, and stepped over to him, placing a hand on his forehead to confirm that he felt as hot as the twins.

Fortunately, Ron brought a whole package of the sweets when he returned, and the twins and Harry each ate one of the antidotes against the fever fudge. During the next two hours, Hermione and Ron busied themselves bathing their friends' flushed faces with cool cloths, and worriedly felt their foreheads from time to time, while their three patients remained awake but hardly replied to anything.

"It's nearly lunchtime," Hermione stated after a glance at her wrist watch. "Let's take their temperature once more, and if their fever didn't come down at least a bit, we have to tell someone."

"Hermione, we'll kill you..." George began.

"If you call McGonagall or Pomfrey," Fred finished his sentence.

"Whom do you want us to call? Snape?" Ron sneered, while Hermione took his brothers' temperature.

"Harry, come on, open up," Hermione coaxed Harry to open his mouth so she could check on him.

"No, I'm fine," Harry croaked, shivering violently in spite of wearing his warm winter robes in front of the fireplace.

"I know that you're fine, but I have to check on you, if you don't want me to take you to the hospital wing straight away," Hermione replied matter-of-factly, wondering why the twins behaved so well, before she turned around to see that they had already taken the annoying things out and were whispering with each other.

"All right, now I'm going to get Pomfrey," she shouted angrily, stomping in the direction of the portrait hole.

"No, not Pomfrey, call Snape please," Fred instructed her, causing his brother to nod.

"Are you sure?" she queried, uncertain if that was supposed to be a joke.

"Yes," George croaked, "and please hurry. I don't feel well."

After a worried look into his face and on the display of Harry's thermometer that showed a number beginning with forty (one hundred and four), Hermione hurried out of the room, only to return twenty minutes later with the professor in tow.

The teacher waved his wand over the three boys, before his expression turned into concern. "Did you by chance take any potions?" he queried. Hermione quickly explained about the antidote to the fever fudge, causing Snape to let out a long sigh. "Had you come to me yesterday, a mere Pepper Up potion would have sufficed to cure you. Now however, you're suffering from bronchitis as well as potions poisoning due to the mixture of a joke potion and alcohol. Unfortunately, I can't give you any more potions for at least forty-eight hours. By then the potions poisoning should be gone, and we can cure your bronchitis. I suggest that you either go to the hospital wing..."

A triple, "No!" interrupted his speech, causing the professor to smirk.

"Or you go to your dormitories and stay in bed, provided that Ms. Granger and Mr. Weasley are willing to remain with you all the time. We could also transfigure these chairs into proper beds, so you can stay here."

"Here please," Harry spoke up hoarsely. "It's warmer here."

With a flick of his wand, the teacher transfigured three chairs into comfy looking beds and helped the three boys to move onto a bed, before he magically exchanged their winter clothes with the pyjamas from their own beds and summoned the boys' pillows and covers from their dormitories.

"Cool," Harry whispered in awe.

"Could you perhaps, if you don't mind..."

"...teach us some time..."

"... how to do that, Professor?" the twins finished their question together. "To change our clothes that is."

"We'll see," Severus replied, turning to Hermione. "You must try to keep them cool." He waved his wand at the fireplace in a complicated wand movement, mumbling an incantation, before he continued, "You must check on them regularly, and if their condition worsens, you have to call me immediately. Your fireplace is connected to my private quarters for the time being. I'm going to brew a non magical fever reducer for them, although I'm not quite sure if it'll help, considering that it's a magical problem, which causes the high fever."

Seeing that Harry had already drifted off to sleep, he turned to the twins. "Behave yourselves and do exactly what Ms. Granger tells you," he instructed them in a voice laced with a light warning.

"Ah but Professor..." Fred croaked.

"... as if we'd do anything but obey," George mumbled sleepily.

Rolling his eyes at the boys, Severus stepped into the fireplace, shouting, "Professor Snape's quarters."

"I like that you let Harry sleep in the middle," Hermione commended the twins in the two outer beds, who merely looked at her from glassy eyes that were just about to shut.

When Severus returned through the fireplace two hours later, he handed each a phial to Hermione and Ron. "This is just a potion to prevent that you get the bronchitis from them," he explained, before he pulled three smaller phials out of his robe pocket, placing them on the table. "Since these are non magical potions, I can't simply spell them into their stomachs. We have to wake them up or wait for them to wake, seeing that they're peacefully asleep. In the meantime, Ms. Granger, to rectify your image as a know-it-all I believe that you still have to learn a few healing spells one of them being the spell to check a person's temperature." He raised an eyebrow at the girl, whose face lit up as she pulled her wand.

"Yes please, Professor," she replied eagerly, trying to follow the teacher's wand movement.

"No, Ms. Granger, you don't move your wand, you merely point it at the head and cast, 'Temperaturam revelo.' You might have to practise a few times, but seeing that you have three patients that shouldn't be a problem," Severus said matter-of-factly, before he left the girl to her practice and turned to Ron.

"Mr. Weasley, how about a game of chess?"

Ron nearly choked but finally produced his chess set, and over the next few hours, Hermione practised her new spell, and the two wizards engrossed themselves in their game that wasn't yet finished when Harry woke up in a coughing fit, causing the twins to stir too.

With Hermione's assistance, Severus gently helped the boys to sit up and drink the potion, before he returned to his seat at the table but proceeded to check the children's temperatures every few minutes.

"This only helped so much," he sighed, absentmindedly taking Ron's queen.

"Oh and I thought you weren't concentrating on the game at all," Ron blurted out, terrified.

"Oh really Mr. Weasley?" Severus smirked. "Such a pity. Checkmate."

During the next two days, the twins' and Harry's conditions still worsened, and Hermione, Ron, and Severus took turns watching over them, trying to cool them down. Professor McGonagall came into the common room at least twice a day to see if everything was all right, wondering if it was because the twins had obviously helped Severus the other night that he was taking care of her sick lions over the holidays.

On the third day, Severus' diagnostic spell didn't show the potions poisoning anymore, and he decided it was time to give them the potion for bronchitis. Two days later, on the day when the students would be coming back in the evening, Severus took Harry, who wasn't completely recovered yet, into his dormitory.

"One more day of bed rest and you should be all right, Mr. Potter. I'll come by again later," he promised, gently tucking the boy in. Back in the common room, he allowed the twins out of bed and returned the room back to its normal state.

"How can we ever thank you?" Fred asked the teacher, grateful that the man hadn't taken them to the hospital wing but had looked after them all the time.

"You can give me the recipes of all your illness feigning joke candies and their antidotes," the teacher replied, smirking. "And there is something I'd like to suggest to you." Seeing the twins look at him expectantly, he continued, "You're both so adept at Potions that I'd like you to become my apprentices after you finish your OWLs, if you're interested of course."

The twins exchanged a thoughtful look with images of two Potions Masters running around in a joke shop selling fun potions swirling around in their minds, before they nodded at each other in silent agreement.

"We'd love to become your apprentices, Professor. Thank you very much."

**The End**

_I'm not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes or help me to correct them._

_All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story._


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